Deuteronomy 31:14

Deuteronomy 31:14

I. Those who live chiefly for this world try not to think of death, because they would like nothing better than to live on here for ever. But the shutting of our eyes to the approach of death does not make him turn away from us, and therefore our wisest and safest course is to prepare for his coming, whether it be near or far off.

II. Death does not occupy that place in the word of God which it does occupy in that religion of ours which professes to be derived from the word of God. In the New Testament death is simply treated as an abolished thing. The second coming of Christ is always, in the exhortations of the New Testament, substituted for death. Death, in the eye of faith, is not the end, but the beginning, of all; it is the commencement of the "life that knows no ending."

III. If Christ has robbed death of its sting, it does not behove us to look at death as if He had not done so. Let us view the approach of death as something which He means should bring us nearer to Him. We must pray Him, since the days approach in which we must die, that death may not find us unprepared. And as we look forward to the future, we must commit our way and ourselves into His keeping.

F. E. Paget, Village Sermons: Advent to Whit Sunday,p. 44.

References: Deuteronomy 31:14. Parker, vol. iv., p. 333.Deuteronomy 31:23. I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament,p. 138. Deuteronomy 31; Deuteronomy 32 Ibid.,p. 341; J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era,p. 333.Deuteronomy 32:3. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vii., No. 367. Deuteronomy 32:5. Ibid.,vol. xiii., No. 780; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 359. Deuteronomy 32:8; Deuteronomy 32:9. M. Dods, Israel's Iron Age,p. 172.Deuteronomy 32:8. F. Whitfield, The Blessings of the Tribes,p. 247. Deuteronomy 32:9. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. viii., p. 451; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 320; A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry,1st series, p. 221; W. Wilkinson, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 132.Deuteronomy 32:11. G. Morrison, The House of God,p. 46.